


Harriet Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

by Jasmine_Black



Series: Harriet E. L. Potter-verse [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Female Character of Color, Bisexual Harry Potter, Black Hermione Granger, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Canon Rewrite, Crushes, Discussion of Periods/Menstruation, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Female Harry Potter, Fred Weasley is a Good Friend, Fred has Big James Potter Energy, Gen, George is a little Shit, Harry has her first period, Harry is not white, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lesbian Ginny Weasley, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Protective Ron Weasley, Protective Siblings, Puberty, Realistic Sibling Relationships, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, The Burrow (Harry Potter), slow burn relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29779731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jasmine_Black/pseuds/Jasmine_Black
Summary: alternatively titled: i know my name is harriet, but please call me harry, and- there's a fucking *what* at my school?Harriet Euphemia Lily Potter has survived her first year at Hogwarts, having made friends and enemies, become the youngest girl to play for a House Quidditch team on record, won the House Cup for Gryffindor, and killed a teacher (it was an accident, okay?!). But a strange visitor brings a stranger warning, and Harry is starting to learn that perhaps Hogwarts isn’t the safe haven she once thought it was.Follows Harry through her second year. All the highlights of the original books are the same, but with slightly different characterisation and character development. Read the rest of the works in the series before starting on this.
Relationships: Eventual Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter & Fred Weasley, Harry Potter & Fred Weasley & George Weasley, Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, eventual Harry Potter/Fred Weasley - Relationship
Series: Harriet E. L. Potter-verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010910
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	1. "Harriet Potter must not return to Hogwarts."

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder that:  
> \- JKR is, among other things, a fucking TERF  
> \- Harry is not white and neither is Hermione  
> \- queer and non-het relationships among the main characters are still being set up as they're still only twelve, but older students being in those relationships are clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's treatment at the start of Chamber of Secrets will be in this chapter, so I don't know if I need to put a specific content warning for that as it's already in canon, but just be aware.

So… the summer holidays weren’t going _exactly_ to plan.

They’d started out more-or-less okay. Like last summer, Harry had kept largely to herself, spending most of her time reading either holed up in her room or at the park under the big tree, though without the company of Mr Whiskerson – who Harry was absolutely _convinced_ was actually Professor McGonagall in cat form, even if she couldn’t prove it. She would have much rather have been zooming over Little Whinging on her broomstick, but she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat too much, or break the International Statute of Secrecy, for that matter.

From the moment she’d gotten home at the end of June, there had been the unspoken agreement that so long as Harry kept to herself, didn’t mention anything relating to magic in the slightest, and did all her chores without complaint – which there weren’t that many of, in fairness – Uncle Vernon would ignore her, and Aunt Petunia would more-or-less follow suit. Harry had been hoping that her aunt had changed over the year she’d been away, but apparently not: as always, she did _exactly_ what her husband told her to. Dudley, too, had barely said a word to her since her birthday last year; he seemed to be under the impression that she would turn him into a parrot or something if he put a toe out of line, because Harry had elected not to tell any of them that she wasn’t actually allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts, lest she return to the status of verbal- and physical- Dursley Family Punching Bag.

This had all been perfectly fine with Harry, but it had gotten lonely after a while. Unlike last year, she actually had friends now… at least, she _thought_ she still did. Neither Ron nor Hermione, or even Hagrid or Fred and George, had written to her at all. Harry had been beginning to worry that they’d forgotten all about her – or worse, never really cared about her in the first place and summer had been a convenient time to cut her out – when her lack of letters became the least of her problems, because two weeks in, The Incident had occurred.

Uncle Vernon had had a work dinner – closing a deal or something, Harry hadn’t been listening because she didn’t care – and Mrs Figg hadn’t been able to take her because she’d been away visiting her brother. Harry had had one job: to stay in her room, make no noise, and pretend she didn’t exist. It would have been the easiest of her uncle’s work dinners she’d ever had to endure – at least she wasn’t under the stairs for this one – except for one very small problem. About an hour into dinner, Harry had come back from the loo to find some… _thing_ jumping on the bed.

Well, not a _thing_ , exactly. It had been a bit like a smaller, skinnier, bald and pink Yoda, wearing what looked like a pillowcase. Only this one hadn’t talked backwards.

After her initial shock had worn off and some very strange introductions – the thing’s name was Dobby and he was something called a house elf, and he had burst into very loud tears when Harry had asked him to sit down – he had explained that he’d come to warn her about “a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! A plot with Harriet Potter at its core!” and that “Harriet Potter must not return to Hogwarts!”

Harry had taken issue with that because there was nowhere safer than Hogwarts, and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and Dobby beating himself over the head with the bedside lamp and Uncle Vernon bursting into her room to find out “what the _blazes_ is going on up here?!” had revealed that Dobby had been stopping Harry’s letters for the past few weeks. He’d brandished a wad of paper at her, and Harry had caught sight of Hermione’s neat print, Ron’s narrow scrawl, and Fred’s illegible scribble; she’d jumped at him, and he’d leapt away, yanking her bedroom door open and darting along the landing and down the stairs. Harry had followed him and found the elf standing in the kitchen, the trifle that she and Aunt Petunia had made for the dinner sitting proudly out on the counter.

“Harriet Potter must say she’s not going back to school,” Dobby had said, eyeing the pudding.

“Dobby, no – they’ll kill me – ”

“Say it, Miss – ”

“Dobby, _no_ – ”

“Then Harriet Potter has given Dobby no choice…”

He’d snapped his fingers, and bowl had flown off the counter, sending bits of cream and jelly and custard and shattering glass all over the tiled floor – the noise drowned out the end of Uncle Vernon’s vaguely racist Japanese golfer joke. There had been yelps from the living room, and Dobby had given Harry a sad smile and disappeared with a _crack!_ as Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had come rushing around the corner, mouths agape at the state of the kitchen. Her uncle had immediately whirled around to the Masons and began apologising profusely – “My niece! – so sorry – very troubled – acts up around new people!” – while her aunt had grabbed a mop and a dustpan and brush and handed the latter to her. As they’d cleaned up, Uncle Vernon and Dudley doing their best to distract the Masons in the living room, Harry had tried to explain that it hadn’t been her, it had been the house elf, but Aunt Petunia had snapped at her to shut up and that she didn’t want to hear it.

All things considered, Harry hadn’t seemed to be in that much trouble: clean-up had been relatively easy; Aunt Petunia had salvaged a dessert of Eton Mess and ice cream; as it happened, Mrs Mason pitied her, telling Uncle Vernon that she’d been similarly troubled in her youth, and had insisted on Harry joining them for dessert; and the deal had successfully been closed with a handshake.

The problem had been the owl.

Harry’s aunt and uncle had been standing at the door, cheerfully waving off the Masons, when a brown owl had swooped in through the front door, dropping a letter on the dining table, and then flying out again before anyone could react. Dudley had approached it curiously, though his father had rushed over, pushing him aside, and ripped it open. He scanned it, and then handed it to Harry without a word.

> _Dear Miss Potter,_
> 
> _We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence (4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey) at twelve minutes past nine this evening._  
>  _As you know, underage wizards and witches are not permitted to perform magic outside of school until they are of age, and further illicit magic on your part may lead to expulsion from school (see Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery 1875, Paragraph C, Section 6 for details if you so require them).  
> _ _We would also like to remind you to inform you that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offence under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks’ Statute of Secrecy._
> 
> _Enjoy your holidays!_
> 
> _Yours sincerely,_
> 
> _MAFALDA HOPKIRK  
>  Mafalda Hopkirk – Improper Use of Magic Office, Ministry of Magic_

Harry had looked up from the letter, her insides cold.

“You never told us you weren’t allowed to use magic,” Uncle Vernon had said, a demonic glint in his eye. “Thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you? Thought you’re clever enough to outsmart me…” he advanced on her, bearing down on her like a bulldog, spit flying everywhere and his moustache quivering in excitement. “Well, I’ve got news for you, girl – you’re never going back to that school of yours – I’m locking you up – I’d like to see you try and figure your way out of that!”

Which was why she’d spent the last week and a half locked in her room with only Hedwig, the cracks in the ceiling, and the ticking clock in the landing for company. That night he’d piled all of Harry’s things – her wand, her textbooks, and even all her new clothes – into her trunk and dragged it and her broomstick downstairs, locking it all away in the cupboard under the stairs where she’d once slept. Then he’d turned the key on Hedwig in her cage and taken it with him. The next morning, he’d fitted bars on her window, and a lock and a catflap on her door. Harry was let out in the morning and the evening to use the loo, brush her teeth, and shower quickly; twice a day he pushed a small plate of food through the flap, which she shared with Hedwig; and every four days he sent Aunt Petunia to collect her laundry, who barely even looked at Harry when she came in.

Dobby might have saved her from whatever it was that was supposed to be going down at Hogwarts this year – but unless something changed soon, Harry was pretty sure she was going to starve in her room if she didn’t lose her mind first.

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A quiet knock at the door roused Fred just as he’d gotten comfortable again. Groaning at the intrusion, he turned over in bed and called, “Come in!” quietly, so as not to wake George.

The door opened, and Ron poked his head in.

“Fred?”

“I’m awake,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “George isn’t, though, so keep your voice do-” – he broke off, yawning – “Keep your voice down because he had a nightmare and he’s just gotten back to sleep.”

“What about?” Ron asked, coming to sit down at the end of Fred’s bed and pulling the blanket around him.

“Me dying. Again.”

“How’d it happen this time?”

“I froze after falling into an icy lake.”

“Charming.”

“I know, right?” Fred agreed. “So – what’s up?”

“Have you heard anything from Harry?”

Fred tensed up.

“No – why?”

Ron couldn’t know he liked her – could he?

“She hasn’t responded to any of my letters – and tomorrow’s her birthday.”

Of that, Fred was well aware.

“… She hasn’t responded to any of mine, either,” he admitted slowly. He tried not to sound so affected by it that Ron would clock that he _was_ affected.

Fred had been missing Harry horribly over the past few weeks. He had been worrying that the complete silence on her part meant that she’d decided that she didn’t want to be friends with him anymore. Hearing that she’d been acting the same towards Ron made Fred feel a tiny bit better because then it wasn’t personal – and then immediately worse because Harry and Ron _best friends_. They were two halves of the same idiot coin (Fred still hadn’t gotten over the Dragon Smuggling Affair); in Harry’s eyes, he and Ron didn’t compare in the slightest.

“I’m worried about her.”

Fred looked at Ron sharply.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well you saw her uncle – ”

“What about him?”

“You didn’t see him?”

Fred shook his head.

“He’s awful,” Ron said. “Hermione and I saw him when he came to pick her up.”

“What did he do?”

“He didn’t need to. I saw Harry’s face.”

Fred swallowed, and let out a shaky breath. Though his mind was racing with all the horrible things Harry’s uncle could have done to her, he tried to stay calm.

“Has Hermione said anything?” he asked.

“Just that Harry’s not responding to _her_ either. She’d worried Harry’s trying to cut her out or something.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Fred said quickly. Harry loved Hermione.

“That’s what I told her.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know… but it’s not good. He gives me a bad feeling.”

“How?”

Ron took a shaky breath and Fred saw tears in his eyes.

“She’s scared of him,” he said. “You know she’d never admit it, but I _know_ she is. She shouldn’t have had to go back there this summer and I _told_ Mum and Dad” – Ron’s voice cracked – “but they just said that ‘she’s fine’ and ‘she’s with family’ but they’re _wrong_ and I don’t know what to do and – ”

At this, Ron’s eyes welled up, and Fred pulled his brother in to him and held him so he could cry on his shoulder.

Fred had pretty much forgotten about that conversation around Christmas, when Harry had said that the Dursleys never gave her any presents; it had shocked him then, but other things had since happened – like Harry nearly dying after stopping the return of You-Know-Who himself, for instance – and it had slipped his mind. He hadn’t connected the dots between Harry scoffing at the idea of receiving any presents from her aunt and uncle and her dreading going back to them for the summer, and he hadn’t been paying as much attention as he clearly should have been at King’s Cross because he’d been so excited to see Ginny. And now Harry was… well – he had no idea _what_ Harry was, which was precisely the problem.

“Get dressed.”

Ron looked at him.

“What?” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“Get dressed,” Fred repeated, extracting himself from out of the duvet and climbing out of bed. “We’re going to get her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.”

“But what if – ”

“If she’s fine, we’ll leave her and see her at Hogwarts” – _and I should probably try to get over her_ , Fred thought as he pulled his jeans on – “but if not, we’ll bring her back here.”

“Bring who back here?”

Fred and Ron looked over to see George sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothing, Georgie – go back to sleep,” Ron said quickly.

“Then why’s he got his jeans on?” George asked, nodding at Fred.

Fred looked at Ron, who shrugged, and then said, “We’re going to get Harry.”

George shot Fred a look of, ‘ _Are you fucking kidding me?_ ’ that he felt Ron trying to decipher, and then groaned and rolled out of bed.

“It’s fine, George. Go back to – ”

“Shut up,” George mumbled, pulling on a pair of tracksuit bottoms. “Go get” – he yawned – “dressed, Ron.”

Their little brother darted out of the room, and Fred heard his steps receding on the stairs as George turned to him, now wearing a hoodie and his feet in his trainers, though his eyes were still half-closed in tiredness.

“You can go back to bed if you want,” Fred said. “Ron and I are fine on our own.”

“She’s my friend, too. ”

Fred nodded. Sometimes, admittedly, he forgot about that.

“What are you wearing then?” George asked after a moment.

“Huh?”

“You should put a little effort in – we’re going to” – another yawn – “rescue your girlfriend.”

Fred glared at him.

“She’s not my girlfrie– ”

“Ready!” Ron said, coming back into the room, similarly dressed to George. “Hurry up, Fred!”

“I am!” Fred muttered, turning to the open wardrobe. Suddenly, he was very conscious of his clothes and the fact he was going to see Harry for the first time in a month. “… What should I wear?”

He felt George's sleepy but smug smile as Ron said incredulously, “Whatever the fuck you want – I don’t think Harry particularly cares!”

_Of course she wouldn’t._

Opting for last year’s Christmas jumper from his mum, Fred pulled it over his head and slipped his feet into his trainers.

“Let’s go.”

The three of them crept across the landing and down the stairs, careful to miss the really creaky floorboards as they passed their parents’ room, and got downstairs to find the kitchen light on.

“What are you doing up?”

“Midnight snack,” Percy said over his shoulder. He yawned. “What’s the cover story then?”

“Don’t need one,” Fred said.

He didn’t think they were coming back without Harry, and her presence would be explanation enough.

“Excellent – don’t stay up too late,” he said, patting each of them on the head in turn – Ron ducked and Percy pinched his cheek – as he ambled up the stairs.

“Wish he was that normal at school,” Ron grumbled.

“So what’s the plan?” George asked. “Floo powder?”

“Nah – the muggles aren’t connected to the network,” Ron pointed out. “Brooms?”

“Not if we’re bringing Harry and her stuff back,” Fred said.

Then he had a mad idea.

“The car.”

“What?”

“The car!”

“We don’t know how to drive!”

“We don’t need to! We’ll fly it!”

“We don’t know how!”

“I do!” Ron piped up “Dad was telling me how it works the other day but he didn’t think I was listening.”

“Perfect! I’ll drive and Ron can sit up front with me and you can sleep in the back, George!”

George looked between his brothers as if they’d gone mad.

“This is insane even for us, Fred.”

Fred kind of agreed. He and George usually preferred chaos entirely planned and orchestrated by themselves, in which they had control of all variables and they knew exactly how, what, and when each part of the plot would unfold. Flying a car cross-country in the middle of the night was the opposite of that, especially when they were relying on Ron’s mechanical knowledge to do so (during the acquisition of which he may not have entirely been paying attention). But Harry was in trouble, and –

“We don’t have any other options.”

George chewed his lip for a moment, and then sighed.

“What are we waiting for?”

* * *

Twenty minutes later they had figured out how to get off the ground – “Are you _sure_ you know what you’re doing, Ron?” “Just gimme second!” – and were safely flying, invisible, over the English countryside in the direction of Surrey. Annoyingly, their dad hadn’t left a map in the glove box, so they were left to follow the blinking compass on the dashboard and Erroll.

“Remind me why we’re following the stupider of the owls in the house?”

“… Because I’ve just sent Hermes off with a letter telling Hermione what we’re doing?”

“Percy’s going to kill you, Ron.”

It took them longer than Fred thought it should have, but luckily it was a clear night, and at long last they seemed to have reached their destination. About a hundred feet ahead of them, Erroll landed on the roof of a house and was flapping about as if to say, ‘ _It’s here! I did it!_ ’ and – _hang on_.

Were those _bars_ on that window?

He and George exchanged a look in the rear-view mirror, and heart sinking, Fred brought the car level with the window. To his dismay, he saw that it was indeed Harry’s; she was fast asleep, her dark hair fanned out across the pillow, and poor Hedwig was asleep in her cage, too.

“Harry!” Ron whispered loudly, but Harry didn’t stir. “Harry!”

Fred edged the car ever so slightly closer to the bars, careful not to let it hit the brick on either side as it hovered in midair, so Ron could reach out. He slipped his skinny wrist between the bars and rapped on the window.

Harry jerked awake and Ron called her name again. This time, she heard him and she jumped out of bed with a yelp. She rubbed her eyes and put on her glasses, and then stared out the window at them, looking small and scared. Her face was drawn and she looked paler and thinner than Fred remembered her.

Something tightened in his chest and his stomach felt all weird and squiggly. There was a lump in his throat, too, but he ignored it.

Inside, Harry climbed up on her window sill and pushed the window open till it hit the bars.

“What are you _doing_ here?” she breathed, looking between the three of them. Fred tried not to think about the fact his face felt warm when she looked at him.

“Well we _came_ to find out why you haven’t been writing back to any of us – ” Ron started.

“Sorry about that” – trust Harry to apologise for something when she was literally being imprisoned – “I had a thing with a house elf.”

“A house el– nevermind, you can tell us later.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with us, numbskull,” Ron said.

“But – I can’t get out! And you can’t use magic!”

“Oi!” George piped up from the back seat.

“Who d’you think you’re talking to?” Fred grinned.

Harry blinked at them.

“How the fuck are you planning on doing that?”

“Give me a second.”

Fred looked between the bars on the window and Harry’s pale face, gears turning in his head. None of them were old enough to Apparate – not that any of them knew how – so their only option, with or without their wands was to get the bars off the window… and he didn’t think his dad had just happened to leave the correct-sized screwdriver in the glove box.

There was a rope in the boot, though.

“Hang on,” Fred said, and shifting the gears, landed the car in the Dursleys back garden. He could feel Harry watching him as he got out of the car and yanked open the boot – and, sure enough, there was a rope under the flap beside the spare tyre. Fred resolved to make his dad all the pear cake he wanted until the end of the summer.

“What is it?” Harry called.

“You’re going to tie this around the bars and then the car’s going to pull it away.”

Harry nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced.

“What?” George asked, getting out of the car with Ron to stand beside Fred.

“All my stuff – my wand and my broom and everything – it’s all locked under the stairs.”

Fred wanted to run Harry’s uncle over with the car. Repeatedly.

He looked down at the glass doors. Through them and past the conservatory – which was built extended onto the house – he could see a dining table, and beyond that, sofas and an armchair and a weird-looking black box.

“Through here, right?”

Up in her room, Harry nodded and said, “But it’s locked.”

Fred and George looked at one another and grinned. Then George's face fell.

“ _Fuck’s_ sake,” he groaned. “I left my pins in my jacket.”

Fred raised his eyebrows at him and pulled his own pins out of the back pocket of his jeans.

“Lucky one of got dressed then, isn’t it?”

George and Ron both rolled their eyes, but up in her room, Harry grinned. Her smile lit up her face.

“You two _could’ve_ made more of an effort,” she said jokingly, though her tone was off. “ _Fred_ got dressed up for me.”

Fred’s cheeks burned as he tried to ignore the look George was giving him and the sound of Harry giggling as Ron told her about Fred asking them, “What should I wear?” earlier, but he forced himself to look at the lock on the door or else he’d forget what he was doing. She had that effect on him sometimes.

“Okay, so I’m going to get the bars off and Harry out, and then we’ll get the stuff from under the stairs, and – ”

“Wait!”

They looked up at Harry.

“What?”

“You need to get the stuff _first_.”

“Why?”

“You’ll make too much noise pulling the” – she broke off, gesturing at the bars – “out of the brick.”

“Right,” Fred said sheepishly. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Give us a second, then.”

He put the pins in the keyhole and fiddled them around until he heard the tell-tale _click!_ and then pulled on the door. It slid open, and Fred dropped them back in his pocket. He pulled the door open a bit more, and catlike the three of them slipped into the house. Fred looked around as they passed the dining table into what seemed to be the main living space – and saw that there was not one photo of Harry anywhere. The mantle place and walls were adorned with unmoving muggle photographs of a round blond boy who looked exactly like the round brown-haired man with the moustache in the other photographs, and in a handful of them there was also a skinny blonde woman; presumably, her cousin, Dudley, her uncle, Vernon, and her aunt, Petunia.

“Pass the pins,” George whispered.

Fred handed them to him without even looking down, still taking in the room.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t even know she lived here, would you?” Fred said.

“I know,” George said gently. “But we should hurry up.”

Nodding, Fred joined Ron beside the cupboard under the stairs and George jimmied the lock open. Ron yelped when a spider about the size of a sickle came scuttling out, but Fred shushed him and crushed it underfoot. Ron shuddered as George passed him Harry’s Nimbus Two-Thousand, and Fred crouched down to help him pull her trunk out from where Harry’s uncle had lodged it in too far and gotten it stuck under a step.

Quietly, they carried her stuff out of the house through the back door and set it down in the grass. Ron pulled open the boot and they got the rope out, and then loaded her trunk and broomstick into the car. As Fred went to close it, though, he noticed something on the trunk.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you aware your initials spell out ‘HELP’?”

There was a pause, and then Harry told him, “Fuck off.”

Beside him, George snorted and Ron let out a bark of laughter (and then clapped his hand over his mouth).

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Harry said. “Fuck off.”

Despite the situation, Fred grinned and flipped her off – she returned the favour – as he told Ron and George to get in the car. He crouched down to tie the rope to a bar that ran across the underside of the car, and then passed the rest of it through the back window, where Ron and George were sat.

Which meant that Harry would be in the front with him on the drive back.

Trying not to think about it, Fred got back in the car and lifted off from the ground, bringing the car level with the window. He noticed, as Ron threw the rope to her, that she’d changed, and that there was a pillowcase of things on the bed, and Hedwig was wide awake in her cage, quiet and watching.

Harry tied the rope round the central bar, and gave them a thumbs-up. Then Fred pulled the car away, driving upwards and away from the window – they were pulled back as the rope was pulled tight, though he shifted the gears and pressed down on the pedal – the engine revved louder and louder – and then with a loud crunching noise and the bars were pulled out of the wall, a few bricks dislodging and falling to the ground. Fred saw Ron and George lean out to pull the bars into the back with them, throwing them over the back seat so they lay atop Harry’s trunk, as he brought the car back up to the window. There was now yelling from inside the house and banging on the door as Harry pushed the window open fully; she threw Ron the pillowcase and passed Hedwig’s cage to Fred – the bird shot him what felt like a very judgemental look as she was deposited beside him.

“Is that everything?” Fred asked.

Harry turned her head to cast an eye over the room – and at that exact moment the door flew open. Harry’s uncle was standing there, frothing at the mouth and moustache quivering – he let out a bellow like an angry bull and dove at Harry – she yelped and then she was on the window sill – Ron was leaning over the front seat and had grabbed her – her uncle had a grip on her leg though he was half-hanging out of the window – they were all shouting and lights had started coming on in the surrounding houses – Fred looked up to see Harry’s aunt standing in the doorway, looking terrified – then her face set and for a moment she looked just like Harry – she rushed over to the window, as if to help her husband – but then he saw her mouth, ‘ _Go!_ ’. Fred nodded and pulled the car away just as he saw Harry’s aunt _push her husband out of the window_.

He fell into the bushes below with a shout, taking Harry’s slipper with him. Harry hoisted herself into the car, trembling, and without another look back, Fred drove the car up and away into the night.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Harry was still trembling. She’d been trembling since the moment she slammed the door of the car closed, but Fred had initially put it down to the fact she’d just narrowly escaped literal imprisonment.

She hadn’t spoken much, either. There had been those snarky comments when she was still in her room, and the obligatory, ‘Hey, where the fuck d’you get a fucking flying car from?’, but for the most part she hadn’t said anything. Which was unusual for Harry.

There had been something off about her from the moment they’d got to her.

The window bars were still in the boot, serving as a sort of erumpet in the room; George had suggested they leave them somewhere, though Ron and Fred had argued that should use them to prove to their mum and dad what was happening over at the Dursleys. Harry hadn’t said anything about it, but had merely asked them if they could let Hedwig out because she hadn’t been allowed out in two weeks. George had fiddled the lock free, and on release the owl had hooted irritably at Fred, affectionately nibbled at Harry’s ear, and then taken off through the window to fly ahead with Erroll. Having assured themselves that Harry was safe, George and Ron had then fallen asleep.

“Are you alright, Harry?”

“I’m fine.”

Fred glanced over at her and saw that she was in fact not fine. Her eyes were shining behind her glasses and she – in Fred’s opinion – very pointedly hadn’t really looked at them. She was curled up in her seat, arms crossed and shivering in addition to the trembling. And then her stomach growled.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Dinner.”

That must have been at about six yesterday and the sun was rising now.

“What did you eat?”

“Soup.”

“What did Hedwig eat?”

“Soup.”

Fred sighed. Holding the steering wheel steady with one hand, he turned and reached over into the back seat, where another blanket was folded up under Ron’s knee. He yanked it free, grunting –Ron’s knee was heavier than expected – as his brother mumbled and turned over in his sleep, and held it out to Harry. She glanced over at him.

“I’m fine.”

He gave her a pointed look, and after a moment, she took it slowly.

“Thanks.”

“There should be some sweets and a bar of chocolate in the glove box,” Fred said as Harry draped the blanket over herself. “Ginny gets carsick and usually sits up front.”

He heard the compartment click open and rustling as Harry opened the _Sugarplum’s_ chocolate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her put a chunk in her mouth. She sighed and relaxed back against the seat, pulling the blanket around herself. At that moment, the sun came _just_ enough over the horizon that it shone straight into the car, nearly blinding him. He put the flap down so he could still see the owls – they were nearly home, flying over familiar countryside with Ottery St Catchpole a few miles ahead of them – and glanced over at Harry.

Her face glowed gold in the rising sun.

“Happy birthday, by the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the upload delay - I'm a bit under the weather at the moment and forgot to post yesterday. I'm also having a bit of writer's block (despite the plot already being written!) so uploads will be a bit more irregular for the next few weeks until I can think properly again.
> 
> Also - I've come up with a Spotify playlist that I listen to while I'm writing this, particularly Fred and Harry scenes. I'll be happy to share the link if anyone's interested: please let me know if you are!


	2. "She's happy you're here. We all are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the Weasleys a lot.  
> I don't know if it needs a content warning, but there is a brief/passing mention that I will put in bolded text about Harry putting on (healthy) weight after being starved at the Dursleys. If that's not your thing, please skip that line, but I think references like that are important and gaining healthy weight should be normalised by talking about it.

Harry was absolutely fucking mortified.

She had spent all year carefully controlling exactly how much everyone knew about her life at Privet Drive – there had admittedly been a few slip-ups, though she’d thought she’d handled them alright – and then Ron and George and _Fred_ had rocked up in a fucking magic flying car (which she _still_ wasn’t over, despite having been in it for nearly the last two hours, by the way) and completely shattered whatever illusion she’d spent the last year crafting. They’d seen her with bars on her window and wearing Dudley’s old clothes as pyjamas, for fuck’s sake… not to mention the _fucking_ cat-flap.

Part of Harry had been fucking livid at them – how _dare_ they see her like that?! – but the longer she’d spent in the car, the less angry she became and the more she felt like crying. She had very nearly cracked when Fred had given her the chocolate and the blanket (she hadn’t been able to control her shivering any more), but she’d been able to maintain her composure, thank god. She was absolutely not going to cry in front of anyone, under any circumstances. Harry hadn’t cried in front of anyone in years – Dumbledore only managed it because he’d caught her off guard – and she was _not_ going to be starting now.

Dawn had fully broken and the sun was climbing steadily higher in the sky by the time they reached their destination. The car – the _flying_ car – had just driven over a small village that Fred had told her was called Ottery St Catchpole about five minutes prior, and they were now nearing a funny-looking building surrounded by fields and rolling hills.

“That’s us,” Fred said, and turned to wake his brothers, while Harry took in the house.

It looked like it had once been a small barn or stone pigpen, but at some point extra floors and rooms had been added here and there to make it several storeys high and lopsided, as if it was being held up by magic (which it probably was, Harry reminded herself). There were a handful of chimneys perched on top of the red roof, and smoke was curling lazily into the air out of two of them. As they got closer, Harry saw chickens and pigs roaming about the yard, ducks swimming in the pond, a neat grassy garden filled with flowers, and birdbath that Hedwig and Erroll had settled on.

Now awake, George shouted, “Touchdown!” as they landed bumpily, and they drove about twenty metres down the drive, coming to a halt beside a small garage.

The twins got Harry’s stuff out of the back – she had to force Ron to let her carry anything, and grudgingly he’d given her Hedwig’s cage – and the four of them made their way across the yard and past a wonky sign that read ‘ _The Burrow_ ’. Around the front door – one of those cut-in-half-across-the-middle-doors Harry had always loved the look of – lay a pile of wellies, a couple of buckets that some chickens were eating out of, and a pile of logs that a rat Harry recognised to be Scabbers was sleeping on. Ron pushed open the door and ushered her inside.

If it was possible, the inside was even better than outside had been. There was a huge, central brick fireplace and behind that a winding staircase that led upwards; on one side of the chimney, the living room had soft, comfy-looking sofas and armchairs and there were blankets everywhere; and on the other was an eclectic kitchen with a huge dining table and mismatched chairs. The smell of fresh bread wafted through the room, and magical photographs and drawings and knickknacks decorated the walls. A tall grandfather clock with two faces stood against the chimney breast – the one on top was a regular old clockface with twelve numbers and two hands, but the other, beneath it, had nine silver hands and words written around the edge: _Home_ ; _School_ ; _Work_ ; _Travelling_ ; _Lost_ ; _Hospital_ ; _Prison_ ; and, for some reason, _Mortal Peril_. Each hand had a picture of a Weasley on it; Harry caught sight of Ron, Fred and George’s faces spin around from ‘ _Travelling_ ’ to ‘ _Home_ ’.

“It’s not much,” Ron said, coming up beside her.

Harry had been about to tell Ron that _she_ thought it was amazing, when there was a shout from above them, thundering footsteps on the stairs, and then Mrs Weasley rounded the corner into the living room, looking absolutely livid.

“Where the _FUCK_ have you been?!” she shrieked. “WENT TO CHECK ON YOU – BEDS EMPTY – ALL THREE OF YOU – CAR GONE – ”

“But, Mum – ”

“ _Quiet!_ ”

“But – ”

“SHUT IT! AND ALL FOR A FUCKING JOYRIDE! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN – YOU COULD HAVE _DIED_! I – ”

At that moment, Mrs Weasley caught sight of Harry and her face went pale.

“Harrie– Harry? What are you doing here?” she asked, completely dumbfounded.

All the steam seemed to go out of her at once, but Harry’s stomach was in knots. She felt _awful_ – she’d gotten them in so much trouble –

“We went to get her, Mum,” Ron said, holding up Harry’s broom. Fred and George set down her trunk, which they still carried between them.

Mrs Weasley stared between the four of them for a moment, and then seemed to collect herself.

“Shall we get some breakfast on? Your dad should be home soon.”

And that seemed to be the end of it.

She walked into the kitchen, pulling her wand out of her floral apron, and flicked it at the ancient-looking radio on a shelf. A warbling sort of song came on as Mrs Weasley pulled open some cupboards and began taking things out to start cooking.

Neither Fred nor George, or even Ron, seemed fazed by their mum’s outburst; the former twin yawned and pushed Harry’s trunk aside – “We’ll take it up to Ron’s room in a bit” – and the latter placed her broom and Hedwig’s cage on top of it, and they rounded the corner into the kitchen and began setting the table with their younger brother.

“How d’you like your eggs, Harry?” Mrs Weasley called.

“Um – fried, Mrs Weasley,” Harry called.

“‘Molly’, love.”

She didn’t know why the lump had returned to the back of her throat or why her eyes were stinging, but she knew that she was going to burst into tears any second and that she was not going to let them see her do it.

“Uh… Molly – um – can I use your bathroom, please?”

“Up the stairs on your right!”

Harry mumbled an, ‘Excuse me,’ and darted up the stairs. She locked the door behind her, put the seat down, and then sat down and cried.

She didn’t even know what she was crying about, really. There was nothing to be especially angry or sad about – she’d made it out of Privet Drive and neither Fred nor Ron nor George seemed to have judged her too harshly for the way they’d found her… but in coming to get her, she’d gotten them in _so much trouble_ with their mum. That, and the last few hours – let alone the last few weeks – had been _a lot_.

She probably could have cried for another ten minutes or so, but she remembered that Mrs Weasley was making breakfast and didn’t want to keep her waiting – and, conveniently, there was a knock at the door at that exact moment.

“Sorry – coming!” she called.

Harry got up and splashed cold water on her face, checking in the mirror that the redness was gone, and dried her face on the towel beside the sink. Then she flushed the toilet to throw off whoever was standing outside, and then opened the door to find Ginny Weasley waiting outside. The girl’s eyes widened when she saw Harry.

“Oh – hi, Ginny!” Harry said cheerily, trying to sound as if she hadn’t just been crying into one of their towels.

Ginny had gone bright read and was just… staring at her. Maybe she didn’t remember her?

“I’m Harry – Harri _et_ Potter. I know Ron.”

“I know,” Ginny said in a strangled sort of whisper.

It was suddenly almost painfully awkward. Harry didn’t know what to do; she couldn’t just _walk away_ – Ginny was blocking her way out and she looked too terrified at the sight of Harry to move – but luckily she was saved a few moments later by Ron’s arrival.

“Breakfast’s ready!” he shouted as he came up the stairs, and then as he rounded the corner into the landing, “Did you get lost, Harr– Oh, you’re up, Gin! Mum’s done a full spread.”

Ginny nodded, and then seemed to take the distraction to dodge around Harry and scamper into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The lock clicked, and a few seconds later Harry heard a muffle scream from inside.

“Is Ginny alright?”

“Don’t see why she wouldn’t be – she hasn’t shut up about you in a month,” he said.

 _That’s a bit odd_ , Harry thought. _We’ve only met twice_.

“Anyway – breakfast’s ready. You head downstairs – I’m going to wake up Percy – ”

“Listen, Ron,” Harry said, just as Ron made to head up the next flight of stairs, “I’m really, really sorry about earlier with your mum – ”

Ron made an illegible, dismissive sort of noise. “Don’t be stu– ”

“It’s fine – if you just – if you can tell me where the nearest station is I can make my own way back to Surrey. I – ”

“What are you talking about?” Ron asked incredulously. He’d paused three steps up at the other end of the landing.

“What?”

“Why would you go back _there_?”

“Well – I can’t stay _here_ – ”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Your _mum_ – you heard her, she was – ”

Ron rolled his eyes.

“Oh – she was just having a moment. She’s fine now.”

“But she was so _mad_.”

“She’s got the worst temper in the house but it’s never for very long. D’you see how she stopped as soon as she saw you?”

“But – ”

“ _Harry_ ,” Ron said emphatically. “She’s happy you’re here. We all are. Trust me.”

She found that difficult to believe, but there didn’t seem to be any arguing with him. She nodded.

“Now go downstairs and eat your breakfast.”

Harry rolled her eyes made a face at him as she turned and padded down the stairs. As she walked into the kitchen, she overheard the radio announce that coming up was, “Witching Hour with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck.”

“Ah – there, you are, Harry!” Mrs Weasley called over her shoulder. “How many sausages do you want?”

“Harry doesn’t like sausages, Mum,” George said through a mouthful of toast.

“It’s fine – ”

“Bacon, then?”

“She doesn’t like bacon, either,” Fred said.

Harry shot him a look – did he _want_ his mum to think she was difficult? – as Mrs Weasley asked her what she’d like instead.

“It’s fine, Mrs We– Molly.”

“Don’t be silly, dear. What d’you fancy?”

Harry hesistated. She’d been craving a proper breakfast for ages – and she didn’t have to cook this one to get it.

“… Do you have any tomatoes?”

“Tomatoes?”

“I like those really big cooked tomatoes,” Harry said. “I’ll have sausages if you don’t have any, though,” she added quickly, though Mrs Weasley shushed her and sat her down opposite Fred and George, and began plating up for her. Then she disappeared out the back door to the garden, and reappeared a moment later with three big tomatoes in hand.

Ron came down a few minutes later dragging a still-half-asleep Percy, who nodded at Harry in acknowledgement before falling back asleep in his arms at the table. A freshly-showered Ginny followed not ten minutes later, her hair still wet. She didn’t even look at Harry as she took a seat beside George – almost pointedly, Harry was convinced – but the two of them were saved from any further awkwardness by the arrival of the Weasley family patriarch.

Mr Weasley was a tall, kindly looking man; though he was grey at the temples, his hair was as red as the rest of his family’s, and instantly Harry could see their resemblance to one another. Where Percy and Ron looked like younger carbon-copies of their dad, Fred and George looked more like their mum. Ginny, ironically, looked little like either of her parents, but was somehow a cross of Ron and George, specifically. Harry wondered how Bill and Charlie slotted in.

“Morning, Dad!” the Weasley children chorused, while Mrs Weasley got up and went over to her husband. She planted a kiss on his cheek and took his green, travel-worn overcoat and brown leather bag from him, and hung them up on the rack as he slumped down in the chair at the head of the table.

“Busy night, Dad?” George asked. “Pass the toast, Harry,” he added as an aside.

Harry did, and happened to catch Ginny’s eye as she did so; she smiled at her, though almost immediately looked away and pretended she _hadn’t_ just seen the other girl put her elbow in the butter.

 _Odd_.

“Long one,” sighed Mr Weasley. “Nine raids – nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to hex me for confiscating cursed items from his shop…”

“Find anything interesting?” Fred asked eagerly.

His dad shook his head.

“The Committee for Experimental Charms finally got a hold of Mortlake – ”

“What’d he do this time?”

“Something weird to a bunch of ferrets, I forget – but all I got was a couple of shrinking keys and some biting kettles – ”

“Why would anyone bother making keys shrink?”

“Just Muggle-baiting – sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it… Of course, it’s nearly impossible to convict anyone because no Muggle would ever admit to a shrinking key…”

“Dad works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office,” Ron explained under his breath. “He’s _obsessed_ with Muggles.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘obsessed’, Ron. Who are yo– oh. Hello,” Mr Weasley said, seeming to finally notice Harry sitting at the table.

“It’s _Harry_ ,” Fred explained, as if it was obvious.

“Harry?”

Over at the oven, Mrs Weasley scoffed.

“Potter, Arthur,” she called over her shoulder as she cracked two eggs into the pan.

“Oh – _oh_ – of course you are,” Mr Weasley said sheepishly. “Bit of a surprise is all – when did you get here?”

At that, Mrs Weasley turned her attention from the hob and crossed her arms.

“This morning,” she said.

“This morning? How?”

“I’ll start at the beginning, shall I? Once upon a time a man bought a rusty old car and he told his wife that he _only_ wanted to take it apart and see how it worked,” Mrs Weasley said, advancing on her husband like a lion cornering prey; he stared at her guiltily, apparently seeing where she was going. “What he was _actually_ doing, however, was _illegally enchanting it to fly_ – ”

“Well, strictly speaking,” he interrupted, and then froze. Around the table, his children were trying to hide their laughter. “You know what? Nevermind.”

“No, no – go on,” his wife said dangerously.

“Uh… strictly speaking,” he said slowly, “one would be well within the law to do so… so long as he wasn’t actually intending to fly the car… he should have also probably” – Mrs Weasley’s eyes flashed – “ _definitely_ – definitely have consulted his wife about the matter, but there’s a loophole he could – er – ”

“ _You wrote that loophole when you wrote that law, Arthur Weasley!_ ”

“I – um – ”

“ _And your sons drove that car to Surrey and back last night!_ _That’s how Harry got here!_ ”

“You did?” he asked, suddenly excited and looking between them. “How did it g– _oh_ – er – your mother is very disappointed in you boys – ”

“ _Don’t you turn this around on them_! _You_ should have told me that car could _fucking_ fly!”

“I think I’ll head off to bed!” Fred announced loudly, startling Percy awake on Ron’s other side and cutting off his parents.

“No, love – you haven’t slept all night,” Mrs Weasley said, having finished glaring at her husband and going to hug Fred from behind. Harry saw him lean back into his mum as she pecked him on the top of his head. “You need to stay awake all day or you won’t sleep at all tonight – why don’t you lot go and de-gnome the garden? They’ve been getting pretty ballsy and I caught one of them swimming about in the bird bath this morning.”

“That’s an excellent idea. Why don’t we go and – ”

“Don’t even _think_ about it, Arthur,” Mrs Weasley snapped, and then softened again. “Why don’t we see what Gilderoy has to say?” she said, and went over to the shelf in the corner and picked up a heavy-looking green one.

“We _know_ how to de-gnome the garden,” George whined as his mum came back over to them, beaming at the front cover. Harry caught sight of the words ‘ _Gilderoy Lockheart’s Guide to Household Pests_ ’ in gold, and a picture of a blond man in the middle giving the camera – and by extension, Mrs Weasley – a toothy grin.

“He’s marvellous, isn’t he?” Mrs Weasley breathed, gazing down at the cover. “He knows his household pests all right, it’s a wonderful book…”

At the other end of the table, Mr Weasley snorted and then quickly covered it up in a cough as his wife shot him a look.

“And what’s so funny?”

“Nothing, dear – nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said, and then turned to her children and Harry, “I’ve also been hearing them swearing a lot recently. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Fred?”

“What?” Fred asked incredulously. On the other side of George, Ginny suddenly became very interested in her eggs.

“I heard them swearing at Ginny when she was playing outside yesterday.”

“And? What’s that got to do with me?”

“You taught them!”

“I didn’t!”

“You did!”

“I didn’t, Mum!”

“Ginny said – ”

Fred looked over at his sister and Harry saw that she was facing the other way, trying not to laugh.

“It wasn’t me! It was her! Look!” he cried, pointing at her so angrily that he thwacked George in the face.

Mrs Weasley looked horrified.

“ _Ginny Weasley!_ ”

Ginny looked at her mum innocently.

“Fred’s lying,” she said beseechingly, though Harry could tell it wasn’t sincere in the slightest. “I didn’t do any– ”

“Oh, come off it, Ginny – ”

“I’m not – ”

“I’ll deal with you later,” Mrs Weasley said with an air of finality, crossing her arms disapprovingly. “Now – the six – _stop that_ , Ginny” – Ginny had stuck her middle finger up at Fred for ratting on her, presumably – “the six of you can go off and de-gnome the garden – ”

“Just the five of them, Mum – I’m working on a Runes paper,” Percy said, having woken up at last.

“Sure you are,” George snorted, and then yelped as Percy seemed to kick him in the shin.

“You five then – ”

“I _hate_ de-gnoming,” Ginny whined, pouting.

“Oh, alright – four of you then?” Mrs Weasley sighed, looking between Harry, Ron, Fred and George. They all nodded. “Then I’ll get started on the cake for this evening. What flavour would you like, Harry?”

“Sorry?”

“Would you like a vanilla or chocolate cake or something else?”

“Cake?”

“For your birthday!”

Among the excitement of leaving Privet Drive and arriving at the Burrow, Harry had forgotten her own birthday.

“Um – vanilla’s great,” she said slowly. Only Hagrid had ever gotten her a birthday cake before.

“Lovely,” Mrs Weasley said, and then turned her attention to her husband. “Now – back to that car, Arthur…”

“Come on – let’s take your stuff upstairs,” Ron whispered to Harry; he got up and nodded at the twins, and the four of them rounded the corner into the living room to pick up her stuff, and then headed up the stairs.

On their long walk upstairs, Harry filled Ron and the twins in on her run-in with Dobby the House Elf. Apparently, house elves were powerful creatures that were dedicated to the service of old, rich magical families and did their bidding – from housework and cooking to errands that needed running. Fred and George had assured her that what Dobby had said was probably nothing more than a stupid joke that she should ignore, and that it had probably come from Malfoy or someone else who didn’t like her and thought that it’d be funny.

“The Malfoys have a house elf?”

“Well, I’d be surprised if they didn’t have on– here we are.”

Ron’s room was on the top floor of the house, right below the attic. On the door hung a small plaque that had ‘ _Ron – Keep Out!_ ’ and a small painted broomstick on it. Harry followed Ron inside – and saw that everything was very, very orange. It was all – the walls and the sloped ceiling and even the bedding – Chudley Cannons-themed. Ron had even covered the lurid orange wallpaper with magic posters of the team that waved and smiled at them. His schoolbooks were lined up on a shelf over his desk, which itself was stacked with a pile of comics all featuring ‘ _The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_ ’. An open book – which Harry realised to be _James and the Giant Peach_ – lay on the bedside table.

Harry stepped over a pack of ‘ _Self-Shuffling Playing Cards!_ ’ and looked out the window, where she could see the garden better… and there was what looked like a two large, joined potatoes floating in the bird bath.

“What the hell is that?” she asked. George came over to the window and peered out.

“Mum wasn’t joking – they really are in the bird bath,” he said.

“That’s a _gnome_?”

“Of course it is.”

Harry stared at the thing – she could see its arms and legs now – as it seemed to turn over and swim a lap around the basin.

“What?” came Ron’s voice from across the room.

“This is the best house I’ve ever been in.”

Fred flushed as Ron and George’s ears turned pink.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Burrow was about as different from Privet Drive as possible, from the weird and wonderful – like the ghoul in the attic that was treated like a pet, and dropped pipes on the ceiling whenever it felt things were getting too quiet – to the mundane: everyone seemed to actually like one another. What Harry found most unusual, though, was the fact that everyone seemed to like _her_ , too.

Mr Weasley liked for her to sit near him at meals so he could bombard her with all sorts of questions about Muggles (“What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?”) and exclaim things like “Fascinating!” and “Ingenious!” and that it was “Incredible!” how much she knew about them. Mrs Weasley was an excellent cook and asked Harry what _she’d_ like to eat for dinner, and always tried to give Harry extra portions whenever she said she liked something ( **the evidence for which lay in the fact Harry had started filling out her clothes again** ). Though Percy largely kept to himself during the day, at meals between his dad’s questions he always asked Harry how _her_ day was and what she was going to do, and liked to ask her about Muggle “popular culture”, which he claimed she was an expert in after she explained _Wham!_ and George Michael to him. Even Ginny seemed to be warming to her – at least, Harry thought she was: the younger girl had started speaking _to_ Harry rather than just squeaking at her, which seemed like a step in the right direction.

Most days, Harry, Ron and the twins would head off to the paddock that the Weasleys owned to play Quidditch. It was up on a hill and surrounded by trees so the Muggles wouldn’t see them from the village, though they couldn’t use proper Quidditch balls in case they escaped the clearing; instead, they used apples and a football from Mr Weasley’s shed of Muggle curiosities. Sometimes, Ginny and Percy joined them, though the latter couldn’t fly to save his life and the former fell off her broom when Harry looked at her, even though Ron and Fred and George kept saying that she was normally a good flier. On those days, they took to playing football – which Harry had to teach them – instead; Percy wasn’t _much_ better at it, as it still required a degree of limb-eye coordination, but it was the safer option all around as it meant no one would go crashing to the ground from twenty feet in the air. They also went paddling in the nearby stream; and because Harry had become the Burrow’s resident Muggle expert overnight and knew how to handle herself around them, the six of them were allowed to accompany Mrs Weasley to her stall on market day in Ottery St Catchpole. Harry was tasked with making sure that none of them got into any fights with the Muggle children (as that had happened the previous summer when one of them had stolen a book Percy had picked up off one of the stalls and Fred and Ginny had gone to get it back).

Another thing that Harry had come to understand was that internally, the Weasley family operated on a bartering system that usually involved the promise of baked goods. Each member of the family, the mysterious Bill and Charlie included, had both a baked-specialty and -price that they could exchange for a favour from another member of the family. So: if, for example, Fred wanted to get Percy to extend Explosion Hours – the hours between which the twins were allowed to conduct as many of their loud experiments (apparently Fred and George fancied themselves a couple of Willy Wonkas) as they liked – he might appeal to his dad with pear cake (Mr Weasley’s favourite) to have a word on his behalf. Similarly, the Norbert Incident had been partially resolved as a result of Ron promising Charlie that Bill would make him a red velvet cake when they both came home over summer (Harry had just missed them, apparently), which was achieved by Ron getting Percy to make Bill the cardamom cookies he liked (which was in turn achieved by Ron doing his best to appeal to George to reduce Explosion Hours). Ron had also had to make Percy apple snaps by way of apology for sending Hermes off with a letter to Hermione without checking with him first, which had apparently massively inconvenienced him because he had a lot of letters that needed sending. Ginny made good blueberry muffins, but had been eternally banned from doing the actual baking bit herself after she’d somehow set the curtains on fire from across the room three years ago. Harry, too, had been roped into this system by both her pancakes – which Mrs Weasley loved – and her chocolate chip cookies, which in her opinion weren’t anything special, but Fred and George didn’t seem to be able to get enough of.

Which would have all been lovely, if she hadn’t been in such a foul mood the entire time. It had started a few days before her birthday, and Harry had thought it was because her mood was catching up to her circumstances – with the bars on her window and the cat-flap and all – but it hadn’t gone away once she’d gotten to the Burrow. She tried not to let it affect her interactions with the Weasleys because she really _was_ so happy to be there, and no one picked up on it apart from Ron – she’d told him she was just tired when he asked if she was okay – and Mrs Weasley, who thankfully didn’t hold it against her, but it was really starting to grate on Harry that she was just _moody_ , all the time, for no real reason. It didn’t help, of course, that Harry’s hips, which had come out of nowhere, were killing her and that her chest was sore and achey; the latter had started filling out near the end of the school year and during July it had grown quite a lot, and she had started thinking that she should probably get her hands on a bra soon.

And then, about a week and a half into her stay with the Weasleys, something happened.

She, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny were up at the paddock playing Quidditch, and Harry had just gone in for a dive to rescue the Golden ~~Snitch~~ Apple, when there was a weird feeling between her legs, like someone had spilled water on her lap. She pulled herself upright, and glanced down – and to her horror, saw that her jeans and broomstick both had _red_ on them. Harry stared.

“You alright, Harry?” George called, flying up beside her.

“Yeah – uh – fine. Just need to run to the loo,” Harry said quickly, closing her legs around the wood so no one would see, and then flying down to the paddock gate. She climbed off her broomstick, and then holding it so no one would see the red, Harry opened the gate and ran down the path that led back to the Burrow without a look back.

When she got in the house, Mrs Weasley was in the living room, seeming to be darning a pair of socks as she sang along to another warbling song on the radio.

“Alright, Harry?” she called, but Harry barely heard her as she dropped her broom by the door and took the stairs two-at-a-time to get to the bathroom. She locked the door, and sat down on the loo – and then her heart stopped as she saw that the inside of her underwear and her jeans were completely covered in blood.

Was she _dying_?

There was a knock on the door that made Harry yelp, and then she heard Mrs Weasley’s voice calling, “Are you alright in there, dear?”

“I’m okay,” Harry called back in a strangled voice. She couldn’t help it. She was _bleeding_.

Outside, Mrs Weasley seemed to cough uncomfortably, and then, “I saw your broomstick. Have you – er – started your period, Harry?”

Her _what_?

“My – period?”

Harry heard Mrs Weasley sigh.

“There are pads in the basket in the cupboard – use one of the dark purple ones. Do you need me to get you another pair of underwear?”

“I’ll get it – don’t worry, Mrs – Molly.”

Even after a week and a half, Harry couldn’t bring herself to just call Ron’s mum by her first name, no matter what she said.

“Are you sure?” came through the door.

Harry exhaled deeply.

“I’m alright,” she said.

“Alright – I’ll get some hot chocolate on, and then when you come down we can have a chat?”

“That’d be great.”

Mrs Weasley’s footsteps receded down the creaking stairs, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. She was fine. Mrs Weasley knew what was happening. She _wasn’t_ dying.

She cleaned herself as best she could and balled her underwear up in her jeans – she’d take care of them later – and wrapped a towel around her waist. Then she grabbed a pad from the basket, and crept up the stairs to Ron’s room.

It took her a couple of goes to figure out how the pad worked, but ten minutes later she was back down in the living room feeling much better than she had over the past few weeks, and there was a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Having got comfortable, Mrs Weasley then explained that as girls got older, their breasts developed, and alongside that they got their period for about a week every month, during which time they’d bleed out and shed the lining of something inside of them called a ‘uterus’. She said that during the period and for about a week before it, girls usually felt a lot of pain in their hips and their breasts and sometimes got a bit moody – which is completely okay, Mrs Weasley emphasised – and the best way to deal with it was resting and eating whatever the hell you wanted.

Some of this had seemed familiar – Courtney Cox’s old advert for _Tampax_ that her uncle had roared at and then switched quickly over from finally made sense – and other parts of what Mrs Weasley told Harry had been completely new.

“So I’ll bleed every month… for a week… for the rest of my life?”

“Not forever,” Mrs Weasley said. “Just until you’re about forty-five or fifty.”

“But that’s like forty years! So I’ll have” – Harry broke off to calculate – “like five hundred periods!”

“That’s life, I’m afraid,” she said, chuckling, and then she paused. “Did your aunt not tell you any of this? Or your teachers at school?”

Harry shook her head.

“Aunt Petunia never said anything – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her… stuff – ”

“You should call them by their proper names, Harry,” Mrs Weasley said. “They’re nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Right – I’ve never seen her… pads or tampons or anything” – Mrs Weasley nodded – “in the bathroom. Sometimes I’ve seen them in the shopping when we’ve come home from Sainsbury’s, but she always hid them because Uncle Vernon didn’t like them and said she had to.”

Mrs Weasley sighed and pursed her lips, though she didn’t say anything.

“And,” Harry went on. Mrs Weasley nodded. “He wouldn’t let me sit in any of the lessons when they told us about sex and stuff, either.”

“Why not?”

“… He said that I’d get ideas about doing stuff.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“The other kids talked about it in the playground.”

Mrs Weasley sighed, but before she could say anything, Fred and George and Ron and Ginny came barging into the living room, shouting, “ _Harry! How long do you take to piss?_ ”

“Harry wasn’t feeling well,” their mum said quickly, shooting them a look.

“Oh – right,” Ron said sheepishly.

“Who wants hot chocolate?” Mrs Weasley asked, it seemed, to move the conversation on. She was met by shouts of, “YES!” and Ron and George followed her into the kitchen.

Fred, though, came over to sit beside Harry on the sofa.

“You alright, Harry?” Fred asked. He was looking at her intently, and for some reason Harry felt warm and weird all over.

“I’m fine – just a bit nauseous.”

He was still looking at her. It was a lot. Harry glanced away – and saw that Ginny was stood between the living room and the kitchen and looking at her with a face like thunder. Then she scowled and stormed off into the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning on writing a one-shot about Charlie and Bill's visit home to the Burrow and dealing with the aftermath of the Dragon Incident in a few weeks! It'll take place in July, while Harry's still at Privet Drive.  
> Explosion Hours and the Weasley Bartering System are also two of my favourite innovations in this book!!  
> And yes, Mrs Weasley's "call them by their proper names, Harry" is a reference to Dumbledore's "fear of the name increases fear of the thing itself".


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